Hope Dies Last
by Mouse-size-Dragon
Summary: Everyone forgets that there were once seven archangels. Grantaire remembers, Grantaire can't forget. After all, Hope dies last. Grantaire just wishes 'last' would hurry the fuck up and happen already.
1. Prologue: Icarus was once an angel too

**Title:** Hope Dies Last

 **Fandom:** Les Miserables, Supernatural

 **Summary:** Everyone forgets that there were once seven archangels. Grantaire remembers, Grantaire can't forget. After all, Hope dies last. Grantaire just wishes 'last' would hurry the fuck up and happen already.

 **Characters:** Michael, Lucifer, Raphael, Gabriel, and all the other archangels (are really only in this chapter), Grantaire, (Enjolras, literally the whole cast of Les Amis and Co. will show up later)

 **Pairing(s):** future Grantaire/Enjolras, may pair up other Les Amis later on too (but canon like Marius/Cosette will remain true)

 **WARNING:** All canon deaths and tragedies happen as they did in canon, Grantaire is bitter AF, and hates himself, and hates God, and really hates everything and everyone at some point, reincarnation, I mixed my imagination with real religious stuff, Sorry not sorry.

 **Disclaimer:** Supernatural, the Bible, all other religious info about angels etc., and Les Mis, does not belong to me.

 **AN:** None of this is Betaed by anyone but me so sorry for any mistakes. This is not actually a Supernatural Fic, at all. In fact it has very very VERY little to do with Supernatural at all. Just the mentions in this chapter and Supernatural canon is like background backstory for the fic which is primarily a Les Mis AU based in the Supernatural universe but not directly impacting or impacted by it. This is based on a) the fact that I always wondered where the other archangels were in Supernatural since there are typically seven with Lucifer not included in that count and Uriel was portrayed as not an archangel which makes only 3 or 4 out of 7 in Supernatural and b) the fic **"** **Under My Wings You Will Find Refuge" by Fiver** on ao3 (or tumblr, which I don't do) that I just read a couple days ago and love. GO READ IT! NOW!

 **Hope Dies Last**

 **Prologue: cannot any recall that Icarus was once an angel too,**

 **for do we not define angels by their wings and ability to fly where no man can**

Everyone forgets that there were once seven archangels. Well, some earthly religions haven't forgotten, but the other angels, the demons, all the really important beings have. The most important thing they all forget is that there really used to be eight. Lucifer, Michael, Raphael, these first three along with the last are the only ones they still remember. Uriel who stood so long with his fiery sword guarding the gate of Eden was the fourth archangel, Raguel the Angel of Justice whose job it was to cast down angels and destroy demons when they overstepped was the fifth, Remiel the Angel of Hope and Divine Vision was the sixth, and Sariel of Death and Repentance who was once tasked with watching over the souls sent to purgatory was the seventh. Gabriel the Messenger was eighth and last to be created. And so it goes, there were once eight. But Lucifer rebelled and though the heavenly Host argued they did not truly fight one another, not to the point of injury, not until after the first archangel died.

Humans say that Hope dies last. Is it ironic then that Remiel was the first to go? Remiel who was not just Hope but Divine Vision and thus knew truths and futures that none of the rest of them ever did. They all felt Remiel's death, like a shockwave, through the collective mind of the Host. When they arrived, all seven of the highest found themselves standing across from their brethren separated by the blackened afterimage, a spiraling mass of feathers and wings, horns and tails, and shapes no mortal eye can comprehend, burnt into the fabric of Heaven where Remiel was slain. Because Remiel must have been slain. There is no Blade left behind so it cannot have been a suicide, (and angels do not commit suicide because it is against their nature to undo their Father's Work in such a manner,) but only another archangel's blade could have killed one of their own. So the lines are drawn.

Lucifer and Sariel on one side, Sariel who will become Azrael when they fall, against Michael, Raphael, and Raguel. Gabriel stands neutral between the two sides. Uriel across from Gabriel refuses to fight when their Father has assigned them the Duty to guard the gate of Eden, not squabble with the rest of the Host in Heaven.

Neither side will admit to having been the first to draw their blade, especially not against Remiel, not against the most peaceful of them all who had been so desperately hopeful that they could resolve the argument without violence. Who had stopped sharing any negative Visions aloud right at the beginning, conspicuously had stopped sharing visions of the other archangels so as to not help or hinder either side, who all could see was suffering under the weight of the conflict before it had even begun.

So Hope dies first and with it the hope of a deathless end to the conflict. Host against Host and garrisons split down the middle as Michael and Lucifer divide the army of Heaven against itself. Then Raguel dies on Sariel's Blade and Gabriel disappears. Michael casts down Lucifer and the Host who fought on that side, as once Raguel would have done, and there are only two archangels left in Heaven. This is how it stands for the age of man; thousands of years where there are only two archangels, thousands of years where two are trying to do the jobs of eight.

Then, once even these two have had enough and lost their Faith, lost their Hope that their Father is still there even though without His Messenger how could they expect to receive His commands, Heaven and Hell join together to attempt the Apocalypse.

Uriel has long since lost his way. Planted the fiery sword in the ground before the gate and walked away, rejoined the Host as a simple soldier wishing for more meaning to existence and eventually turned to Lucifer for guidance and is killed by his own blade. Azrael is dead by the time the bid for the Apocalypse has rolled around, who can say if it is by another demon, something the Winchester brothers did, or Michael or Raphael. Both Uriel and Raphael held anger over Raguel's death against Azrael all these years so perhaps it was even Uriel's reason for stepping out of neutrality and into Lucifer's train of followers.

Gabriel is killed by Lucifer in the conflict, the only one of them to stand for the side of humanity this time. Then Lucifer and Michael are both cast into the Pit and locked in the Cage. And Raphael, the Healer, is left the lone archangel. But Raphael has long since abandoned the very role they were created for. Castiel consumes the souls of purgatory, without Sariel guarding and lowering their numbers by ushering them on through redemption they are like a helpless buffet laid out for feasting upon, he proclaims himself God and destroys the last of the archangels.

There were once eight. Now there are none.

Except, as everyone knows, Hope dies last.

* * *

 **AN:** Also this chapter alone could just be a stand alone. If you aren't into Les Mis or like don't want to read any further. You could take this chapter as a weird meta about Supernatural if you wished to.


	2. Ch1: how long is the journey

**Title:** Hope Dies Last

 **Fandom:** Les Miserables, Supernatural

 **Summary:** Everyone forgets that there were once seven archangels. Grantaire remembers, Grantaire can't forget. After all, Hope dies last. Grantaire just wishes 'last' would hurry the fuck up and happen already.

 **Characters:** Grantaire, (Enjolras, literally the whole cast of Les Amis and Co. will show up later)

 **Pairing(s):** future Grantaire/Enjolras, may pair up other Les Amis later on too (but canon like Marius/Cosette will remain true)

 **WARNING:** All canon deaths and tragedies happen as they did in canon, Grantaire is bitter AF, and hates himself, and hates God, and really hates everything and everyone at some point, reincarnation, I mixed my imagination with real religious stuff, Sorry not sorry.

 **Disclaimer:** Supernatural, the Bible, all other religious info about angels etc., and Les Mis, does not belong to me.

 **AN:** None of this is Betaed by anyone but me so sorry for any mistakes. This is based on a) the fact that I always wondered where the other archangels were in Supernatural since there are typically seven with Lucifer not included in that count and Uriel was portrayed as not an archangel which makes only 3 or 4 out of 7 in Supernatural and b) the fic **"Under My Wings You Will Find Refuge" by Fiver** on ao3 (or tumblr, which I don't do) that I just read a couple days ago and love. GO READ IT! NOW!

 **Chapter 1: how long is the journey to understand ones own nature**

Remiel is the Angel of Hope and so they hope that their brethren will not rebel and fight against their Father's commands. Remiel is also the Angel of Divine Vision and so they know that their brethren will rebel and fight against one another, for they have seen the whole of it. For all that hope is a weapon, sometimes used to fight off any number of negative emotions, it is primarily a shield. Hope is meant to protect; it wards of depression and guards dreams, it is meant as a boat to keep one afloat at sea regardless of how endless an ocean it may seem. Or perhaps it is just a piece of driftwood that floats by at the right moment to be grasped and clung to. Hope is not truly a weapon, not always. In this way Remiel is not a warrior, not truly, not always.

Of course all angels are soldiers. None more so than the archangels created to fight off the monsters that would consume the world if given the chance. But even that duty can be considered one of protection. So Remiel was always more comfortable fighting to protect someone, creation, humans, younger siblings of the Host, than for the purpose of their own personal rights.

They cannot support this rebellion. Not just because they are created to love and protect, not just because angels are create to follow and not lead (free will is for humans, and monsters or demons, but not angels, never angels, until, eventually, it is). Truly they cannot support the rebellion because they have seen how much beauty the humans will bring into the world. They have seen joy and love and sorrow and anger and so many things. The things the humans will bring into the world make their being burn in odd ways and what might have been tears run from the closest things they have to eyes at the moment.

The humans don't last long, true. They are petty and willing to deface Father's magnificent creation, true. They have not power like angels do and are miserably flawed, every one of them. But oh how they shine! Remiel Sees them. And Remiel falls in love with humanity before even Adam is created.

So no, when Lucifer starts talking of rebellion and a refusal to love man, Remiel can't support that cause. True loving Father is or has been their highest calling before, but now there are beings who will laugh and sing and dance and paint and create poetry. There are beings who will give birth to fragile infants they will love more desperately than anything in the universe. They will suffer broken hearts and live to love again. There will be great cruelty and great sacrifices. Some of these humans will love the Father better and more than any angel will ever manage. How can they refuse to love these little siblings Father will make for them? Remiel is the first angel to love mankind.

Remiel is the first angel to love mankind even more than they love Father. They are also the first angel to wish that they too could be human, could live as only a mortal creature can, to experience free will and creativity and emotions (and taste buds, they seem so interesting), most of all they wonder what it is like to need to do things before they run out of time. Time is such a foreign concept to a being who was created before there were planets to rotate stars and still has all of eternity to exist. Remiel finds themselves wondering.

Hope and Divine Vision are two very contradictory things. Or so it seems to Remiel. On one hand Remiel can See the truth of what is to come, a third of the Host will follow Lucifer and be cast out for the crime. Yet on the other hand Hope. There is always hope that maybe even just one of them will not make that choice to rebel. (It takes a few thousand years but eventually Remiel learns to stop hoping.) Remiel of course does not know every being at all times, nor do they See every event that will come to pass, they See only what they are meant to. They are the angel of _Divine_ Vision which of course means visions sent from God.

When Father sends them the vision of their own future they are grateful. Father gives them a vision of them doing what they wish most to do: leaving Heaven behind and living on earth with humankind. When Father sends them, really allows them to go as Father sends them visions of the Host in rebellion and Remiel on either side along side the vision of Remiel going to earth so even Remiel can tell that Father is showing them the three paths they can take, Remiel flies and doesn't bother saying good bye.

One thing Remiel always trusts is their Vision. Even when they give up on hope they never give up when it comes to trusting what they See. Remiel knows that they must not let any of the other angels know where they have gone.

(Remiel does not know that Father has helped them hide by falsifying their death to the rest of the Host, because their Divine Vision does not show them that had any of the other angels known Remiel was still alive then Remiel would be killed by Lucifer after Gabriel or later by Castiel when they choose to purge the last of the archangels. Remiel does not know that their death sparks a war.)

They go to earth. They watch Adam and Eve be tempted by their brother. (They mourn their brethren who fell.) They watch Adam and Eve populate the earth. And one day, when the humans have grown plentiful enough that they do not all know each other well enough to tell that a stranger is not also human, Remiel joins them.

It starts like this: there is a girl. She is brave and bold and young but not very beautiful in the eyes of men. She allows a being calling itself an angel into her body. In return they share it. The two of them travel the world, and it is easy to do when one has the powers of an angel at their command, because that is what she has always dreamed of. They experience many things together and then one day she tells the angel she is tired of traveling and wishes to stay with a man they have met. She wants to settle down for love. And the angel is happy for her so they leave her body and watch over her family instead. Man and woman join, as these things go, and soon have children.

This is the line that ties itself to the angel, the family angel if you will. Stories will be passed down (mama shared with our angel for a time, your grandfather took our angel to war with him, our angel traveled with me for three years before I met your mother) and the angel will always have a willing vessel. Someone young and brave and wanting to travel, or scared and wishing for a companion in a dangerous time.

Because they are careful not to allow much of their Grace into the humans, careful to share and not burn out the soul already there, ever so careful not to stay too long, the angel never hurts one of their humans and never has to worry about a 'true' vessel (even though said true vessel will come of this line one day).

Because they cannot afford to have their full and true name spoken the angel calls themselves R.

Several thousands of years of this the angel and their family have migrated across continents, survived plagues and natural disasters, fought innumerable wars, and the angel is tired. They still love humanity but it has grown to be a distant faded love and they do not have as much hope in anything anymore. It is hard to hold onto hope when one sees suffering and pain and the same mistakes being repeated over and over again. R has learned that you can't stop them no matter how you warn, like silly children, each and every one of the humans wants to make each and every mistake, commit every sin, that their parents did before them.

R is tired but does not See themselves going back to Heaven or revealing themselves to any other angels or demons, so R stays with the humans. Slowly hope seeps away as they watch countless lives pass and end without purpose or meaning.

One day, not many years after the life of Christ has played out, a few hundred, no more than a thousand, the angel's true vessel is born. The boy has curly black hair and bright blue eyes, a rather common combination in their family. He's a stocky thing and grows up to enjoy fighting a bit too much as his nose is broken several times before he has lived a dozen years and it eventually heals crooked. He woos himself a wife from their village with little handmade trinkets, jewelry he twisted into being himself of leather scrap and pretty rock chips, and they are poor but content. They have three children when he is called away to war.

Not every generation feels an urge to call upon the angel. Some people are quite happy to live and die simple lives in simple villages and never see any more of the world. Until the end this boy was one of those people. The only time he calls R is when he lays dying on a battlefield, fighting for an cause he doesn't understand and an empire that conscripted him. All he asks of the family angel is that his wife and children be taken care of. He never wanted to travel, never needed adventures, and now his death has come early. Although they are bitter and jaded by this point, has seen so many millions of human die in pointless conflicts like this through history, R takes his prayer and fulfills it.

It is R who goes back to the village. R who tells their wife that her husband died and he is the family angel (it is a story the family freely shares with all new members). R who raises his children and pretends to age (illusions because he is the Angel of Divine Vision after all and can show people the things he wishes them to see) and eventually buries his wife. And one day all the children are grown up and the wife is dead and R leaves.

He goes to find how best to waste away eternity. R is tired. He does not hope.


	3. Ch2: eternity is a synonym for torture

**Title:** Hope Dies Last

 **Fandom:** Les Miserables, Supernatural

 **Summary:** Everyone forgets that there were once seven archangels. Grantaire remembers, Grantaire can't forget. After all, Hope dies last. Grantaire just wishes 'last' would hurry the fuck up and happen already.

 **Characters:** Grantaire, (Enjolras, literally the whole cast of Les Amis and Co. will show up later)

 **Pairing(s):** future Grantaire/Enjolras, may pair up other Les Amis later on too (but canon like Marius/Cosette will remain true)

 **WARNING:** All canon deaths and tragedies happen as they did in canon, Grantaire is bitter AF, and hates himself, and hates God, and really hates everything and everyone at some point, reincarnation, I mixed my imagination with real religious stuff, Sorry not sorry.

 **Disclaimer:** Supernatural, the Bible, all other religious info about angels etc., and Les Mis, does not belong to me.

 **AN:** None of this is Betaed by anyone but me so sorry for any mistakes. This is based on a) the fact that I always wondered where the other archangels were in Supernatural since there are typically seven with Lucifer not included in that count and Uriel was portrayed as not an archangel which makes only 3 or 4 out of 7 in Supernatural and b) the fic **"Under My Wings You Will Find Refuge" by Fiver** on ao3 (or tumblr, which I don't do) that I just read a couple days ago and love. GO READ IT! NOW!

 **Chapter 2: as the stories go eternity is a synonym for torture**

Angels are not physical beings. They don't have bodies like humans, they don't have true individuality like humans do either. When they are in heaven they are one of the Host, as one of many they are all intrinsically linked on a spiritual and mental level, and they don't have physical bodies so much as they are amorphous or nebulous masses of Grace because they don't need physical bodies and boundaries as humans have. Which means that as God is creating animals and stuff on earth some of the more curious angels will mimic or imitate some of these shapes, scales/tails/horns/wings/limbs, just to see how they feel or what they are for.

There's a reason that the first thing an angel says to a human in the bible is "fear not." Because angels will give themselves a mouth to speak with if they need or eyes to see if they wish to try seeing things in the way that animals and humans do but they don't quite understand bodies as they don't really posses them, and quite often when they appear to a human in a dream or vision they do not appear human or even as one individual creature instead they are a mishmash of physical characteristics they find most interesting to have and/or figure they need at the moment. (This is actually a supremely logical decision process for them, like: God has sent me to give a message to that person in their dream tonight, I need a mouth to talk to them, oh I like how many teeth sharks have, let's go with that, and I need an arm to hand them this staff, and an arm to point out that symbolic fire over there, and an arm to point to the path they need to take, so three arms sounds right, oh, geckos have those cool sticky pad things on their hands I'll make one of the arms like that, what other kinds of arms should I try out, hm, wings are a must because humans expect those on angels, I wonder why, but no matter flying is great and reminds me of heaven, and eyes, I should have eyes, I've heard that humans like to look at them when you talk to them so I guess I'll add a bunch of those to keep the human from getting bored, hmm what else might I need? And they end up being somewhat terrifying to us mortals merely because we're so very different and don't understand each other.)

So angels are genderless as a race. They don't reproduce, they don't fall in love as humans do (carnal, and so focused on one individual), they don't eat, all bodily functions and purposes are a mystery to them.

They don't experience those things until they come to earth and gain a body. Suddenly they have a gender, the body they have been invited into, their vessel, has a physical reproductive system that not all other vessels have. Male or Female. But they themselves don't really understand the difference. Often they'll go along with what their human used to be; my vessel is a man who goes by he/him and so I continue on with that because I don't really know or care about the difference, or vice versa with she/her in a female body. They just let the humans around them gender them because they don't really care either way. It's like they put on a green jacket and everyone around them calls the jacket green and they go "yes that is indeed the color of this jacket, and the outside color of this jacket does not really matter nor does it affect me, all I needed was a jacket to wear." The jacket is of course the physical body they are wearing. Green may be a female body, and orange a male body, but the angel doesn't really care about the color of their jacket. To them all colors are just colors and all are equally valid colors since color does not affect the function of the jacket.

Their love is a distant fraternal love for one another and a soul deep complete devotion to God and whatever duties he assigns them. If he assigns them to love humans then they do, they love humanity in that distant way that one might say, "I love butterflies. I just watch them do their thing and have no real urge to interfere. They are so fleeting and fragile after all that there's no use getting attached to them individually."

The thing about this is that Gabriel and R(emiel) decide to go and live among the butterflies. Both of them are isolated suddenly. Before now they were in constant mental and spiritual contact with the rest of the Host. Even such a thing as individuality is new, they are far more used to being a part of a we than an I or a me.

Now Gabriel keeps himself a bit separate from humanity; he becomes one of and befriends the pagan gods who are also somewhat powerful and immortal, at least far more so than humans can be. So Gabriel is among similar beings of a sort. And while he enjoys humanity he doesn't get attached to them on an individual level because the beings he forms connections with are the other gods. As such these gods stay alive for thousands of years just like he does and remain connected to him even if they go years without contact, because what's a couple years to a being older than the planet. Gabriel does not become attached to time as much more than a vague concept the humans assign importance to.

R on the other hand goes and lives with the butterflies and has only butterflies to make connections with. And no matter how much he loves his butterflies, or gets attached to them as individuals, they always always die. To R they die in a matter of days, seconds even, and R has to watch millions of butterflies get born and grow up and spread their wings and become his friends (and he even shares a few years of life in the same body with many of them) and then they die. Again and again. R has nothing and no one as a lasting support system. Most significantly is that **_the majority of humankind is not important_**.

You may be upset by that statement. But it's honestly true. Take for example when the Black Plague swept across Europe from 1346-1353. An estimated 50 million people died in just 7 years. But we don't actually know those people as anything more than an estimated number, no one can name even a fraction of them. Because they weren't really important to the rest of history.

A quote from a Florentine chronicler of that time period is a great example of how little many of the dead mattered; _"At every church they dug deep pits down to the water-table; and thus those who were poor who died during the night were bundled up quickly and thrown into the pit. In the morning when a large number of bodies were found in the pit, they took some earth and shovelled it down on top of them; and later others were placed on top of them and then another layer of earth, just as one makes lasagne with layers of pasta and cheese."_ [A real quote that can be found in The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe Ever By Ole J. Benedictow published in History Today Volume 55 Issue 3 March 2005]

They made dead people lasagne in the ground and didn't even bother recording which people, or how many exactly, had been tossed in the pit. Up to 60% of the population died in many cities (with the lowest percentage being around 30 in less densely populated towns).

So, let's not mention how many thousands of wars there have been throughout history. Let us not try to count how many thousands of senseless murders. Let us not pretend that we can ever make a full accounting of how many people have died of natural or un-natural disasters instead of old age. Let's just think about how very miserable the weight of watching all those deaths and having no one to share that burden with would be for R. Then, after watching and sharing and loving and losing so many, R is asked to live a man's life and take care of his wife and raise his kids. And he does. He lives with this family as a human, as their father, as her husband.

Of course she and he aren't married in the physical sense, not at first, but they're partners in life and eventually friends. Possibly they become lovers, his body married hers after all even if the soul has changed. She introduces him to humanity, to living as a human, to being human, in a way no one had quite done before. Before her he was a watcher, a protector, and a sort of tag along who temporarily shared experiences with a human host but, like a date who goes to a movie their partner picked out of politeness, R was most often allowing the other half of the partnership to make the major decisions because they didn't feel as if it was their place to claim things for their own since it was not their body or their life. Yet now they have a wife and a house and children and eventually grandchildren (though not of course biologically speaking, R is very careful not to create any nephilim, he adopts the three children his vessel had before as his own).

With her, his inherited wife, R learns to live and love and be as human, and then she dies. And then their children die. And their grandchildren. By this point he has of course hidden himself again, pretended at his own death, and he is lonely. It is this R who spends another 800 or so years wandering the earth, wondering just how long eternity is because by this point they understand time. It is this R, alone and lost and so very saddened by humanity, who wanders the streets of Paris at night and drinks at pubs in the day. This is the man who meets Les Amis.

* * *

 **AN:** This started as about meta of how I see angels and why I kept using they and them instead of he/him/she/her pronouns. It was going to be a paragraph of notes down here at the end. But as you can see it grew and grew. And eventually I realized that it was not just meta anymore but a partial explanation of why Grantaire is so very cynical and why he has lost hope which was of course what this chapter was supposed to be. So I just called it what it had become, the chapter.


End file.
